I’ve always thought it a little interesting—some older video games, the game Creatures, maybe some of the Final Fantasy games, possibly Myst(? I didn’t actually play it), seem to have a sort of pseudo solarpunk aesthetic. Mostly I think because they wanted to have puzzles and doodads that were sort of interactive, but also free-standing, and also they wanted to have “old stuff” littered about, so it needs to be renewably powered, to avoid hard to answer questions about who’s going around these ancient ruins fueling all this stuff up.
Or possibly solarpunk just drew inspiration from this stuff, I don’t know.
I also really dig hopepunk (2017), the opposite of grimdark. And shout out to A Half Built Garden, (2022) a sci-fi first-encounter book described as solarpunk, hopepunk, and (coining the term) diaperpunk. Wikipedia:
> The various "-punk" subgenres are connected by the idea of social disruption. Hopepunk in speculative fiction explores resistance, rebellion, and resilience as counters to apathy and cynicism.
> The various "-punk" subgenres are connected by the idea of social disruption.
Interesting. I heard the other opinion that all "punk" are connected that they're all dystopia, but in different flavors. This is specifically an argument against this depiction of solarpunk and that hopepunk is inherently incoherent.
My issue with Solarpunk, given that it puts quite a bit of emphasis on wanting to inspire real world change is just how pastoral it always seems. When you see works inspired by it, it's always a nice walkable neighborhood with a bunch of cool eco friendly gadgetry[1] and so on.
It always seems very escapist to me, like a sort of techno Hobbingen view of the future. Is there a work in the Solarpunk genre that throws a Solarpunk society in a military confrontation? Especially today competitive and defense concerns again seem to drive energy and technological development.
The technology is very cool- it's a shame to see this is from 2008 and for whatever reason, it hasn't caught on in the last 15 years.
On another note, I find the idea of solarpunk really appealing, but don't come accross many specific recommendations (even this article only mentions one book)- anyone here have any good shouts on where to start?
the "project hieroglyph" anthology is great. it's "techno-optimistic science fiction" which isn't 100% identical to solarpunk but does have considerable overlap.
among older SF, "ecotopia" would definitely be called solarpunk if it were published today. it's a little preachy but I enjoyed it. becky chambers's "monk and robot" books are great modern examples, I can definitely recommend those if you like quietly philosophical science fiction.
Oh nice, thanks a lot! Had a quick search and those are all going on the list- monk and robot looks particularly interesting because I've heard a lot about solarpunk as a contemporary genre haven't come across contemporary published books yet, will definitely give it a read!
The best book recommendation I have in mind is "A Psalm for the Wild-Built" by Becky Chambers. It's a small book, but it truly embraces the Solarpunk aesthetic in many cool ways.
When friends ask me for fictional works with a Solarpunk vibe, here's my short list.
Movies: Miyazaki's "Castle in the Sky" and "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind," Cameron's "Avatar," Disney's "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" and "Treasure Planet".
Video games: The Zelda series (especially the latest ones: TP, SS, Breath of the Wild), "Horizon Zero Dawn", "Nier: Automata".
If there is collapse and we don't have all our existing manufacturing, I could see concentrated solar power into steam being a primary energy source. You can also store steam and then use it for all sorts of purposes including manufacturing and even cooling (yes!)
Solar punk could just be the actually viable steam punk. I got one look forward to the awesome hats and goggles
Which prompted me to post the Wikipedia link 4 years ago, several others posted similar links prior to that, and others have posted interesting links here too:
Fiction is nice, but from a technology angle key technology would be
- solar
- wind
- perhaps geothermal (microwave beam borehole drilling down 7km)
- battery
- microgrid (district scale)
- grid forming technology (or maybe using DC power instead of AC..?)
- systems that can be switched on to using surplus power, and off at peak demand
- of course the whole underlying social structure. Markets can help in self organising, until they start to become the system…
Handy podcast is Redefining Energy, although this has never mentioned Solarpunk, but has lots of the technology, and new ways of implementing much of it:
I have for some time now seen microgrid's as a tactical solution to war.
Makes it much harder to knock out a nations infrastructure if that infrastructure is modular
So, we just launched a website for a project which we're calling Solarpunk school – a learning center we want to build at our farm, where we've been doing a bunch of conservation work. Hope y'all don't mind me sharing the link:
We're really into Solarpunk as a movement, and wanted to grow the impact of the conservation work and build on that with community projects. The idea is that the school would facilitate things like community gardens, lecture events, music & art camps, outdoor education programs – all aiming to inspire and motivate people towards building a solarpunk future, where regenerative agriculture combined with technology plays a central role.
I’ve always thought it a little interesting—some older video games, the game Creatures, maybe some of the Final Fantasy games, possibly Myst(? I didn’t actually play it), seem to have a sort of pseudo solarpunk aesthetic. Mostly I think because they wanted to have puzzles and doodads that were sort of interactive, but also free-standing, and also they wanted to have “old stuff” littered about, so it needs to be renewably powered, to avoid hard to answer questions about who’s going around these ancient ruins fueling all this stuff up.
Or possibly solarpunk just drew inspiration from this stuff, I don’t know.
Anyway, it is a cool vibe.